


Thief

by Faerrenheit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fallout (Video Games) Setting, Apocalypse, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Drug Themes, Drug Use, F/M, Ghouls, Implied Sexual Content, Macabre, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faerrenheit/pseuds/Faerrenheit
Summary: Words do not belong to you. You wear clothes that are not yours. The name, you have stolen. You can pretend to be someone else, but for how long? Truth presides over us all.John Hancock wrestles with his identity in a bitter, unforgiving world.





	1. Stolen Words

**Author's Note:**

> Best enjoyed on a small display (such as a mobile device or a shrunken window) in my opinion. Find notes regarding artistic choices in the work at the bottom.
> 
> (If you enjoyed the story, a kudos would be much appreciated!)

  
Of the people, for the people,” John said to the mirror. Stolen words. He popped the pleated frills of his undershirt upright. Patriotic vestments he filched from a historic display. 

Honesty crept out of the mirror. _You’re a liar,_ echoed across the silver surface. Anxious little worms bore holes in his gut, putrefied his entrails, each one chanted: _a liar and a thief._

The mirror man was identical to him. Silver coins for eyes, jaundiced rings. Gaunt cheeks, sunken eye sockets, and an undead complexion. His face marred by crosshatch ruts and scars. He tucked dirty blonde hair behind his ears and fit a leather tricorn hat atop his head. The mirror man was earnest, and the outside man was a liar.

“Lookin’ good, Johnny,” he said through clenched teeth. Finger guns blasted toward his likeness, holstered in his trouser pockets. His smile melted into a hard, straight line. “It’s better this way,” he said, bitterness curled a noose around his neck. Eye contact faltered, the man in the mirror mouthed a word: _liar_.

John shoved an inhaler into his mouth. sucked in the metallic tasting haze. Conviction became feel-good complacency. His expression fell a thousand miles away, his mind carried further.

Time crawled in the drug’s winding vapour. Languid sunshine spread through his core. He cupped a hand to his ear, stood listening. Silence. _Goodbye stupid conscience_ , he thought.

Mirror man found him. The gut worms enlarged, squirming, displaced his organs with their undulations.

John pulled a sheet over the mirror. Tucked the edges into neat corner-folds, smoothed the creases with the flat of his hand. He stepped back to admire his handiwork, arms akimbo. 

Cigarette smoke rolled into the room, a miasmic cloud. “It’d be better to throw it off the balcony,” Fahrenheit said, behind him, her voice a shade deeper than one would expect. 

“I want to cut breakfast on it later,” he said.

Fahrenheit chuckled, an arm slung around his shoulders. A hand-rolled cigarette danced between her lips, ash crumbled off the cherry-tip onto the floorboards. “You’re late,” she said, pointed. 

“It’s not like they’re keeping track. And so what? Who cares,” he said, a sheepish red blossomed on his face. _What a load of bullshit,_ a worm niggled in the back of his skull. With a pop, he fitted his heels into their respective boots. Shimmied deeper into his trousers, fixed the ass-out sensation, and cinched a red and blue flag around his waist. He was out the door before Fahrenheit delivered an encore complaint.

Goodneighbor bustled with traders and low-lives, free to live their lives their own way. Formless conversation filled the streets. Conmen weaved their lies, cleverer ladies giggled at every joke.

Chores checked off his to-do list with each hour’s pass, Fahrenheit at his heel. Every interaction she observed studiously, her arms crossed, her scowl a permanent fixture. 

A woman offered him a quick trick for his signature homebrew jet in an alleyway. Fahrenheit, the black widow, scared the skin off her. Without another word, the hustler scrambled into the shadows, a piss-trail left in her wake. John held his tongue, and Fahrenheit’s knowing gaze dropped to the shotgun balanced in her hands. _Stay on schedule,_ her thoughts phased into his mind. With a sigh, he swaggered onward.

Strong-smelling libations filled John’s nostrils first. Next, his red-felted coat snagged, and the pitiful ghost of a man fell into his vision. The elder tugged on his tailcoat, fingers wound tight, as a child would cling to his mother. “Mayor Hancock?” the man asked, unsteady. Unfocused eyes, thick with milky cataracts.

John wedged himself between Fahrenheit and the drifter, his ass endured the kick. “What’s up, brother?” 

A small grin appeared on the man’s face. “I thought that was you, Mayor. Heard your boot-steps all the way down the road. Brewed this up meself, sir, three months in the making,” he spoke with a childlike quality to his voice, despite the wear of age. He held a bottle up in offering, kerosene-smelling liquid sloshed within.

John snatched the bottle and chugged the liquid down before Fahrenheit smacked it out of his hands. Fire burned in his chest, acid shredded his esophagus, his hand planted on his stomach to yoke the roiling vomit. He ignored Fahrenheit’s evil snicker, refused to grace her with his acknowledgement. Gasohol, the name could be no other.

The elder explained his desire to sell the exquisite moonshine at the local club. Frantic gesticulations showed the crowds of people queued for a single sip. John promised his consideration, a mere platitude, on the condition the elder refined the recipe. 

Orange evening sunlight framed the neighbourhood. John leaned against the old state house, Fahrenheit droned on about war games. 

Bishops and rooks, kings and queens, and her favourite tool: pawns. Her schemes dispatched his enemies with terrific speed. Indispensable Fahrenheit—dependable, his only friend.

How fortunate he was to have her, she was in the middle of saying, when her eyes flickered off his face. “That girl is fresh out of the vault,” she said, “like a fawn standing up for the first time. It’d be cute, if Finn wasn’t about to stick her.”

He cocked a brow, a wry grin spread over his face. Vault dwellers (when not the victims of appalling experimentation) had a health and vitality about them. Her plump thighs tucked into a delicate waist, contoured by a skin-tight blue jumpsuit. He sucked in a mouthful of air.

“Keep it in your pants, Hancock,” Fahrenheit chastised him, her iron grip clamped his shoulder. The black widow wanted to see how this played out, and so did he.

The vault dweller stared up at Finn. “O-oh, do I need insurance?” she asked, incredulous. She shed the virginal innocence, a white-toothed scowl took its place. “Is it _‘keep dumb assholes away from me’_ insurance? Otherwise, I’m not interested.”

John choked on laughter. “She’s feisty, ain’t she?” he said, low, “I like her.”

Fahrenheit released John and patted his ass. Derision curled around her voice as she spoke, “Sic ‘em, Mayor.” 

On cue, Finn seized the vault dweller’s arm, and wrenched her forward at an unnatural angle. Her feet stuttered across the pavement. Banshee shrieks cracked the air, interrupted by a cussing concerto, and turned the heads of onlookers. The woman played the loser in tug o’war for her arm, her face sheeted in agony. 

Desperate, she groped at the offhand holster around her waist. Finn caught her, and she fought harder. Appendages thrust every which way, animal growls ripped from her throat. Finn brandished a blade to put her down, knowing no other method to end the fray.

John grabbed Finn, and drove his switchblade into the soft flesh between the ribs. The knife snaked in and out. The glinting steel dulled by a thick coating of red. 

Finn collapsed to the ground, his hands kneaded the wound, as if to clasp an unbuttoned coat. He looked up at John, for only a moment. He drew a final rattling breath, his eyes turned to glass, and fell back against the pavement. Blood pooled heavy and black around his body.

John extended a bloody hand to the newcomer, wolfish grin spread wide across his face. _Congratulations on the marvelous entrance,_ he imagined her words. The worms squirmed in his entrails, the vault dweller did not reply, her mouth agape. 

“You all right, sister?” he asked, his hand retracted.

Silence.

“I told him before, ‘first time through the gate, you’re a guest’. Old habits die hard. But sometimes a mayor’s gotta make a point— _ahem._ Mayor Hancock,” he said. He gestured to the town behind him.

Dried mascara lined her cheeks in rivers, her eyes glistened with new tears. “Th-thank you,” she said, quiet. She cradled her forearm, her body trembled. 

_What, ghoul got your tongue?_ he thought at her. “Finn didn’t hit you too hard, did he?” he asked. He reached to inspect her, and she shrunk backward, her eyes narrowed.

“A-are you okay?” she spoke in an anxious vibrato.

Memories scratched to the surface. His mother’s tender voice. Summer sunshine. She looked down at him, wagged a finger at him. _‘What did I say about running on the stairs, Johnny?’_ Streamlets ran down his cheeks, his knees bloody. _‘Are you okay, honey?’_ Mother cradled him, stroked his blonde hair. The rhythm of an old lullaby lolled into his head.

Ghosts, pushed into a lockbox and forgotten. John cleared his throat, a fist stamped against his chest. “I’m a ghoul, you see,” he said, in his best lecture-room voice. “I think it gives me a sexy, ‘King of the Zombies’ kinda look. Big hit with the ladies.” 

Red flushed across the crests of her cheekbones. A delicate hand covered her lips. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mea-”

“You might want to keep those kinds of questions on the low burner next time. Lots of walking rad freaks like me around here. Goodneighbor’s _‘of the people, for the people,’_ you feel me?” Stolen words.

Night tide brought loneliness to his old state house. He conjured the vault girl. Her plump little hips, short stature, her raggedy ginger hair and smooth skin. The fear with which she beheld him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salutations!
> 
> Although I intended to keep Hancock's appearance somewhat ambiguous, I have written little hints here and there--this Hancock is inspired by the one found in the mod, "Sexy Hancock". I believe Hancock's appearance in the vanilla Fallout experience is a stipulation of Bethesda's Creation Engine. Hancock has been a ghoul for roughly ten years, there's not a chance he looks like a 200 year old ghoul.
> 
> So yes, this Hancock has hair. He has a nose. His skin isn't as terrible and he's not quite as ugly as a regular ghoul. 
> 
> I want to take what Bethesda has provided us, and expand on the areas where they were restricted because of the limitations of the game engine. The world I write about is filled with more people, objects, problems. I hope, if I continue writing more, that it will be a darker world.
> 
> A few artistic liberties may diverge from canon, although I will be as lore-friendly as possible. I hope no one minds!
> 
> Please feel free to critique my work, be as harsh (constructively and realistically) as you wish! I haven't written in a long time and I am pleased to be back in the swing of things.


	2. Six Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Best enjoyed on a small display (such as a mobile device or a shrunken window) in my opinion. Find notes regarding artistic choices in the work at the bottom.
> 
> (If you enjoyed the story, a kudos would be much appreciated!)

 

Grass shoots sprouted in cement cracks. Beryl-leaved trees shifted in the western wind. Sunbeams washed across weary faces, welcomed several newborn infants, and brought springtime.

John rested his hands against the balustrades, hearkened to the rising neighborhood din. Chewable, grape-flavoured mentats dissolved on his tongue.

The vault dweller was a shadowed memory. Recalled with fondness, but the imagery was too blurry and worn to decipher.

“Good riddance,” Fahrenheit had said, the day that blue jumpsuit walked out the front gate

. His fingers tightened on the railing.

Eyes closed. Opened. He found himself in the ass-shaped indentation on his couch. A sticky green plant chopped into a pile, his knife rested nearby. He scraped it into a thin paper, and he rolled it into a cigarette thinner than his pinky.

Fahrenheit waited for him to settle into the first hit. “Are you high enough to talk, now?” she asked, a corrosive edge to her voice. Furrows ran deep in her brow, apprehensive creases drew down her lips. She slapped a newspaper across his lap, exercising her mastery of patience. “Did you see this? It’s that damn vault girl, I know it.”

_Vault girl?_ John scoured the page, his fingers slid across the embossed ink.

**P** _U_ **B _L_** I **C** K  
**O _C_ C**U ** _R_ E**N _C_ ** _E_ S**

**.** . **.** .  
_NEVER-BEFORE OPENED VAULT, LONE WOMAN SEEN LEAVING_

 

 

John whopped the paper with the back of his hand. “And it’s important because … ?” his inflection dipped, unconvinced, “what’s this about?”

Fahrenheit sunk into the couch, a scoff parted her pursed lips. “ _Never-before opened,_ Hancock. Not only that, but no one has ever contacted the occupants. No food, no water, no medical supplies. That doesn’t sound odd to you?” she said. Shifted to the edge of her seat, her fingers tapped against the coffee table. “She’s no good. A synth spy. She's not welcome here.”

“One-eleven,” John said, reading. “Didn’t catch the badge on our girl’s suit, did you?”

Fahrenheit shook her head.

“She didn’t look like trouble, Fair. She’s a pussycat—can spit up a storm, can’t back it up. ‘Sides, we don’t know which vault she’s from. If it makes you happy, next time she comes around, keep an eye on her,” he said, smoke streamed from his nostrils. He held the joint up for her until his arm blood drained away and settled for another drag, himself.

She pushed off the couch and stomped down the hallway, paused at the top of the stairs. “I can smell _trouble_ a mile away, Hancock. We’re making a mistake,” venom coated her words.  

His fingers traced the hasty likeness. Ink on paper. The woman was skinnier than the one that marched through the gates last November. Curvaceous hips, a tidy waist, and short, scruffy hair.

Memories, like old friends, popped in. His imagination twisted the thoughts. The vault suit crumpled on the floor, and a pristine subterranean woman bent over his bed. He shoved his hand down his britches.

 

_

 

Another peaceful day in Goodneighbor. One wanton murder, and no less than seven peaceful drug  transactions.

A man shouldered past him. An imposing silhouette, dressed in a black trenchcoat, and a face hidden by a fedora.

“Watch it!” John warned, he caught the man by the wrist. “What’s with the get up, pal?” Shadow obscured the phantom’s face, his chin tucked downward when John stooped to pry

“You _dare_ hinder justice?!” The voice was feminine, disguised octaves deeper and dreadfully overacted.

A thousand questions surfaced. Before he chased answers, the phantom scurried down the street, out of sight. John clasped his chin between his index finger and his thumb, stroked the rough skin. Hallucinations, he surmised, and hurried back to the Old State House.

Ten thousand steps separated him from the den. He clambered upward, panting and wheezing the entire way. Smoke less, he noted to Fahrenheit, and tossed a pack to the floor, collapsing at the coffee table.

Unenthused with his drug-fuelled tale, Fahrenheit sunk into a hip and crossed her arms. She shook her head, _tsk_ ing. “Kent’s squawked about the Shroud for over a week,” she said, “she killed Wayne Delancey.”

John flopped on the couch. “Good, guy’s a dirtbag,” he said. “A real live comic book hero, huh? Life’s a trip.” He massaged his temples, popped a mentat into his mouth, and slung his head over the couch arm.

“AJ’s pushing up flowers, too. And now, Kent’s sic’d her on Kendra,” a crooked grin appeared on her face.

Laughter boiled behind his ribs. “Oo _ooh,_ ” he revelled in the thought, “three of Sinjin’s prized lapdogs, six feet under. I like it. Think it’s enough to flush out the big bad, himself?” Inside, he screamed with delight.

Few things in the wasteland curdled his blood, and Sinjin was one. Ruthlessness tasted sweet to the ruthless, and raiders flocked to Sinjin’s command. If John had to see one more familiar face skewered on a pike outside the walls …

 

_

 

Contingent on the Shroud’s success, John had a plan.

The radio crackled to life only a week following Kendra’s execution order. Kent proclaimed, with great enthusiasm, that the wicked bitch met a gory end.

The Shroud was indebted to Kent, Fahrenheit had said, and would do whatever he asked. And Kent was beholden to Hancock, because he lived in Goodneighbor. “Be careful Shroud,” Kent said, and set the plan in motion. The Silver Shroud would meet with Hancock.

Fahrenheit puffed on her cigarette, her foot tapped to music no one could hear. “Shroud’s here,” she said, her head canted against the window.

Two sets of weighty bootsteps ascended the stairs. The Shroud floated into the den, her fedora obscured half her face, only her wry grin visible.

MacCready shadowed her. His fake smile did little to camoflauge his nervousness. Fahrenheit shrugged when John squinted at her. MacCready’s involvement was new.

John leaned against his chemistry table, kicked a lazy leg out, and lit up a smoke. “Some costumed freak is operating in Goodneighbor, and here’s the kicker, it ain’t me,” he said through a breathy chuckle.

Wet lips clicked open, the phantom pronounced a single consonant. She froze, propped her hat upward, a smile emblazoned on her face. “The neighbourhood is ill. I am the cure,” she proclaimed, drama accented every word.

The room erupted into belly laughter. The neighbourhood watch caught their stomachs. Even Fahrenheit offered a single exhale (more than usual), and John wiped tears from his eyes.

Once he regained composure, and righted the frills of his undershirt, he took the phantom’s hand. “You’re priceless! Like the Silver Shroud _herself_ walked out of a comic book into my den. And you’ve been busy _scaring_ people. Bashing in a few faces. I respect that. So far. But I gotta ask,” pause for dramatic effect, “why the get up?”

The Silver Shroud delivered another resounding performance, more ridiculous than the last. Fahrenheit tapped an invisible wristwatch in the background.

“Listen,” John started, “I’m not knocking you for killing those assholes, they deserved it. But they all belong to the same asshole. And _that_ asshole is planning some old-fashioned revenge on you. You dig?”

Behind the Shroud, MacCready squirmed. Knowing, worried eyes plastered to the back of the phantom’s head.

John added his own flowery brand to his description. “I want Sinjin to take a dirt nap,” he said, excited fervour permeated his tone. He imparted all knowledge about Sinjin to the woman, and sent her out the door with his signature tap on the ass.

Fahrenheit foresaw doom. She sucked on the end of a cigarette, watched the Shroud disappear behind the gate, and turned to him.

“You so sure about that?” he asked, “I don’t want to alarm you or nothin’, but that was your favourite vault dweller.”

Her scowl only worsened.

 

_

 

Eyes closed. Opened. Irma cried at his feet, her pale hands clutched his coat. He recoiled, horrified at her ability to materialize in front of him.

Tears streamed along her convex cheek line. Her face red, eyes swollen and ugly. Minutes passed before she formed a coherent sentence. Sinjin ransacked _his_ people. Abducted Kent from within their walls.

John sent his men to escort Irma to the Memory Den. Unsaid, was how he thought inaction was the right choice. War meant casualties. What was one man, against the entirety of the neighbourhood?

Jet soothed his anxieties, he insisted. He inhaled two canisters. Metallic flavours spread on his tongue. Night veiled the town, and Fahrenheit retreated to her dwelling. He was alone in the dark.

_Coward,_ a worm wriggled at his nape. Thousands more writhed in his gut. _Spineless, terrible, coward._ Little white worms stirred his intestines, turned him into soup. Incontinent sensations tickled the end of his bowel. A meeting with the honey-bucket accomplished nothing, other than to dash dignity.

He tried to sleep. His eyes fluttered shut, reality fell away beneath him.

_Heh-h-hey, Mayor Hancock!_ Kent Connolly stuttered, a cool glint in his coal black eyes.

John bolted upright, his palm pressed against his forehead. “Well, shit,” he said. An empty room greeted him.

Worms chewed his heart meat, his chest swelled, filled with them. Fingers raked across his face, pulled his lower eyelids down.

“I fucking hate myself,” he said, a breathless whisper. Alone in the dark.

The mirror man called to him, tugged on the silver threads that connected them. Some part of John wanted to see the mirror man, too. _It would be nice_ , he thought, _to see him cry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You read this far, did you? Thank you kindly! 
> 
> I definitely feel this chapter is a stronger chapter than Ch1. I would not fault someone for skipping the first altogether. So far, we're setting the scene for the plot, hopefully this goes right. Wish me luck!
> 
> My apologies regarding the formatting in some areas. You may notice wayward spaces (especially after punctuation). Instead of formatting entirely in HTML, I first formatted in rich text and switched over. I honestly think it may have been a mistake, as it caused errant spacing.
> 
> I'm fixing it as I catch it, but I hope it does not detract too much from the story.


	3. Head Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Best enjoyed on a small display (such as a mobile device or a shrunken window) in my opinion. Find notes regarding artistic choices in the work at the bottom.
> 
> (If you enjoyed the story, a kudos would be much appreciated!)

/ **hallucination** /  
[noun]  


\- a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind, caused by various physical and mental disorders, or by reaction to certain toxic substances, and usually manifested as visual or auditory images.

  
John stood on a cliff-top, staring out toward eternity. Fractures spiderwebbed through the mountain stone, cracked like ice underfoot. Rocks tumbled over the precipice, clapped together, and disappeared in free fall. Gone, devoured by the great abyss. John slipped.

Mother grabbed him before he hit the ground. Summer sunshine warmed his skin, radiated from the golden halo of blonde hair that ringed her face. Her arms wrapped around him, she steadied him on his feet, and squeezed his shoulders with maternal gentleness.

“What did I tell you about running on the stairs, Johnny?” she said, firm. Down the stairs she led him, enveloped his hand in hers, humming an old lullaby.

With each step, Diamond City drifted further away. An opaque, paling fog rolled over the corrugated metal structures, and obscured the town from sight. Johnny quickened his pace.

Mother pulled him backward. “What did I just say?” she scolded, “are you even listening to me?” 

Johnny looked at his feet with a timid nod. “Don’t run on the stairs,” he said in a small, rehearsed voice.

Cigarette smoke rolled into the Old State House den. Years passed in an instant. Fahrenheit slung her arm around his shoulders, rocked him against her body. “You’re late,” she said. 

He sat on the couch, popped his heels in his boots. “It’s not like they’re keeping track,” he said, “and so what? Who cares?” 

“You’re a liar,” Fahrenheit said. A seam halved her face, split open her skull, her flesh inverted. Worms, twitching, spilled from the facial cleft in a singular mass, and hit the floor with a wet slap. The crawlies surged toward him, overcame him in a great swell, enlarged, and roped around his neck.

“Did you see the Silver Shroud, M-muh-mayor? Isn’t she great?” Kent Connolly sat on the adjacent couch in his den. The worms vanished. “She’s strong and b-brave, like the Shroud should be!”

The floor warped, groaning, nails rocketed up and pinged across the room. The world dissolved and the abyss remained. He slipped. No one caught him.

_

Eyes opened. Sunlight pierced his corneal tissue, poked a red-hot iron through his pupils. He stretched, throttled fatigue out of his joints, and drank a deep yawn.

John trudged into the den and threw himself on the couch. Embraced by the moist corduroy cushions, he closed his eyes for round two of his beautyrest. Fingers played in the button holes of his coat, relished in the rough woolen textures. Reality, often a companion of disappointment, now brought him quiet joy. 

Yet he could feel the lash of Fahrenheit’s measured glare. _Put on your boots,_ said the upward quirk in her brows, and the exasperated eye roll told him she did not care about his beautyrest. He opened his eyes, Fahrenheit evaporated, and the empty room pressed in from all sides. Nothing more than a conjuration of his conscience. John sighed and slid on his boots. 

_Good enough_. He cracked open a beer and took a swig of the lukewarm piss-water.

Another Fahrenheit strolled into the den. “Good, you’re ready to go,” she said, cheerful.

John squinted. He rubbed his eyes and when he opened them, she remained. Stood in her usual corner and breathed in a lungful of smoke. Her lips curved in—what appeared to be—an affectionate smile. 

“What? Why are you giving me that look?” she asked, a single brow quirked. Ever the patient one, she did not wait for his answer. “Your vault dweller ganked Sinjin. She’s efficient, punctual. Gets the job done. If we bought her debt from Kent, we could get her working for us. What do you think?”

John had cocked his head back for a deep drink while she spoke. He choked, spluttering, “Sinjin’s dead and Kent’s alive?” 

Fahrenheit nodded. “Put down Sinjin’s gang, too. Most are dead, some took off running.”

Enticed by the abandoned riches, they acted. His men swept the raiders’ waystations that day, emptied the haunted corridors and filled the mayor’s strongroom with wealth. 

 

John joined the growing party in the street. People lugged a jukebox outside to play old world tunes. Vendors sold booze for only a cap, and an elderly gentleman allowed passersby to taste-test a foul moonshine in the street. One man performed a juggling act, and only struck someone’s head with an errant throw twice.

Even the Silver Shroud, then dressed as a simple vault dweller, threw her head back in laughter. Danced among his people as if she were no stranger. Alien movements, no doubt her vault-learning, had her walking in place. Her arms angled while they swung forward and backward, alternating her appendages in the most laughable fashion. 

Infectious was her enthusiasm, and soon the crowd followed her lead. Performed their best approximation of her dance, awkward, but teeming with cheer. She stopped dancing and instead offered pointers, corrected postures, and turned John’s streets into a dance clinic.

Blackness deepened the night, and the event started to come to a close. Starburst colours crackled across the sky, illuminating joyed faces, and drew gasps up from the crowd. A memorable finale to commemorate the festival (Sinjin is Dead Day was a terrible name, per Fahrenheit).

Bobbi No-Nose found him and nudged him with her elbow, her face framed by the pops of red and blue light. “Don’t mention it,” she said, unprovoked, her smile snaked from ear to ear, “you can pay me back later.”

John frowned. “When did you get the fireworks? Your timing is-”

Fire tendrils reeled across the sky, elicited more whooping from the crowd. Doctor Tennery interjected, grabbed John by the shoulder, and expressed confidence in Kent Connolly’s recovery. “Granted,” the doctor said, “he’s returned minus a finger. But one finger less is not the most pressing issue for a ghoulish retiree.” 

Bobbi was gone before John had said goodbye to the doctor.

_

Kent Connolly, christened Rhett Reinhart by the Silver Shroud, left Hancock’s den the next day with a hopeful glimmer in his eyes.

“Not so fast,” John said in an overacted transAtlantic voice, as the Shroud stood to leave. “We gotta exchange some words, see.”

Fahrenheit pushed MacCready out the door and shut it behind them. Her voice boomed on the other side, “Calm down, or you’ll regret it.” And again, more strained, “I said: _calm down!”_

Nervousness swirled behind the placid exterior of the vault dweller’s eyes. John circled around her, planted himself on the couch, and gestured for her to join him.

She obliged.

“Gonna tell me who you are?” John asked.

The Shroud shook her head, _no._

_Of course._ His mouth twitched, frustration gnarled his nose bridge. “You from vault one-eleven, like the newspaper said?”

Crinkles formed in the middle of her brow. “There’s a newspaper?” she asked, in her own, feminine voice. She buried her nose in her Pip-Boy, scrolled through a hundred note pages. “Newspaper … newspaper … hmm … newspaper …”

A sharp pounding at the door turned both their heads. Something heavy slammed against the ground, followed by MacCready’s pained voice, “You ass—urgh— _ash_ hole!” 

John sighed. “Go on, get out of here,” he said, “before your goon gets himself killed.”

The vault dweller burst through the door, grabbed MacCready, and peeled off into the street. 

Breathless, Fahrenheit returned to her post next to John. Wiped her forehead clean of sweat with her sleeve. Blood trickled along the contour of her lip. She struck a match on her boot, lit a cigarette, and inhaled a long drag.

“Tell me,” John said, quiet, “was he a good lay?” He ducked, and missed catching a slap by a hair.

_

The Silver Shroud retired to the comic book shelf, and the vault dweller disappeared into the Commonwealth’s belly. John entertained himself with unremarkable mayoral duties, frozen in a cycle of complacency.

Unable to resist the siren song of the John-shaped indentation in his couch, he slumped into place. Cradled a whiskey in one hand, picked at dogeared label with the other. His glazed eyes fixed on the bold **Mentats** lettering on a nearby box. The package vibrated across the table, John cocked his head, his nose wrinkled, “What the-”

 _Who **mpf**_. Chaos erupted. The couch slid away beneath him. Wardrobes pounded the walls. The coffee table hopped into the next room, trampled two guards and shoved them against the stairwell banisters. Mentats and drug paraphernalia soared through the air, skittered across the ground. John landed on his ass, his eyes bulging, and his trousers moistened by spilled whiskey.

One hand braced against the wall, Fahrenheit scrambled onto her feet. Her icy stare turned up, lip curled, “Care to explain?”

“It wasn’t me,” he said, words strained by his clenching jaw. He caressed his buttocks, groaning. “Definitely ain’t as fun on the receiving end,” he said, and surveyed the damage. Mentats sprinkled the ground, half of them foamed in the whiskey spillage. He plucked a wet, semi-liquefied tablet from the floor, and sucked it down. “Someone’s gotta clean this up. Not me, but you know. Someone.” 

Rigid cords swelled in Fahrenheit’s neck, eyes ablaze. She kneeled on the ground, maintained searing eye contact, and herded mentats into her hands. 

John gulped, and knelt, scooping wayward narcotics into his hands. “Maybe a suicide greenskin blew up right under our feet, or Charlie blew a gasket, or ...” he aired a few more suggestions, and settled on none. It was a curious, one time phenomenon, per his insistence.

With the den tidied, John cracked open a new whiskey and swallowed a hard mouthful. Cleaning is bullshit, he noted, and asked Fahrenheit to write it down; she did not.

 _ **Bw** oom_. The Old State House swayed, the floorboards rippled underfoot. Mentats pittered under the couch, and John’s new whiskey sailed through the air, and was obliterated against the wall. 

Eerie silence followed the tremor. Then broken, by pounding at the door, and shrill voices, edged with uncertainty. The crowd demanded answers, to be afforded protections, from an invisible force.

Skin bunched around his eyes. He approached the door to the balcony, and for a moment, buried his head in his arm. What could be said to quell their worries? he wondered. Worries that tied his stomach into knots, with little worms clenched in his gut. Goodneighbor deserved more than answers. The people deserved _action._

John pinched his chin between his forefinger and thumb, tracing his jawline. His expression darkened, _“Bobbi.”_  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you for reading thus far. I know my writing is awkward and rusty at the moment, so please feel free to critique! 
> 
> The next chapter will shake up some things so [please stand by]. ;)
> 
> Jan 5th - I lost all my progress on CH4 somehow from my Google drive. I'm working on it!


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